


Flirting with Death

by rainfall-at-midnight (passionfish11)



Category: Sky High (2005)
Genre: Gen, Lots of OCs - Freeform, Mild Sexual Content, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-26
Updated: 2016-07-26
Packaged: 2018-07-26 23:49:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 5,229
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7595128
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/passionfish11/pseuds/rainfall-at-midnight
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Will is flirting with death just by being alive.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. A Battle Unlike Any Other

**Author's Note:**

> I posted this story on FF.net back in 2006, and I have neither updated nor edited it since then... It's extremely unlikely that it will ever be updated OR edited. sorry :/

“Smoking isn’t good for you, you know.”

 

She blows a cloud of cigarette smoke in his face and he coughs. “Kid, I’m dead. I can do whatever I want to, it isn’t going to hurt me at all. But that doesn’t mean it won’t hurt you.”

 

“If you’re trying to defeat me through second hand smoke, then you’re gonna be here for a while.”

 

She snorts and drops herself carelessly down onto a pile of dusty red velvet curtains and crosses her legs. Will looks away, his cheeks red with embarrassment as the ankle length loincloth slides across her legs to reveal even more gray skin. She smiles, aware of his discomfort. “Defeat you?” another long drag on the cigarette, “I don’t want to defeat anyone. I’m just a poor, misunderstood, dead girl. That’s all.”

 

She grins and Will can sense the smug look in her eyes, even as they are hidden by tightly wrapped bandages. She lies back against the pile of curtains and makes a show of uncrossing her legs before pushing herself up to rest her elbows on her knees. She blows out cigarette smoke, and for an instant, Will thinks it’s in the shape of a skull.

 

“But enough about me. Let’s talk about you,” she hisses this last part out and stands up in one fluid motion. “Will Stronghold. Son of the famed Commander and Jetstream,” he hasn’t felt so embarrassed about his parentage since that first time on the bus, “and, as I hear it said, heir to _both_ of their powers.” She begins circling around him as he stands in the light that streams in from the theater above them, “And so _soon_ , to be a super-hero! A member of the Stronghold Three! How _exciting_ ,” the word drops from her mouth like acid, “it must be.” Then she isn’t circling, isn’t smoking, isn’t laughing; she’s gone.

 

Will looks around frantically, wondering where she is, but the only thing that suggests she was even there are the clouds of cigarette smoke. 

 

And then, suddenly, there are long, thin, gray-skinned arms wrapping around him and he stiffens as she leans her head on his shoulder and whispers against his neck. “Aren’t you just so _excited_?” he can feel the cold skin of her breasts on his back through the thin fabric of his tee-shirt and he can feel the strands of black hair trailing across his neck like spider webs that aren’t really there.

 

She pulls him backwards onto the red curtains, somehow moving her body so that she is on top as dust swirls up from the impact of their bodies against the velvety material. She straddles his hips and presses long, waxy fingers into his shoulders, sharp black nails cutting through the fabric of his shirt and digging into his skin. Will is too stunned, too dazed, for the automatic reaction of fight to kick in as she leans forward, bare chest in full view.

 

She presses herself against him and he snaps out of his daze, finally realizing what the situation is. But still, he doesn’t struggle, due to some unknown reasoning deep within his subconscious. She licks the side of his face and a chill runs through his entire body as she leans in to whisper in his ear.

 

“I have just one question for you, Will Stronghold. Are you afraid of me?”


	2. Nightmares in the Waking Hours

Will opens his eyes and sees his ceiling. There are no old, dust cover mirrors, no heaps of dusty red velvet curtains, no broken shafts of light streaming in through a hole in the floor of a stage above. Just that plain white ceiling.

 

He lays there a minute longer, noticing things. He is almost shocked to find that his eyes are not blurry with sleep, and that it seems hardly a second ago he had just gotten into bed and closed his eyes, willing sleep to come faster. But he doesn’t feel as though he has slept at all. He feels like he has just been running for hours unending, swallowing dust instead of precious air.

 

Will sits up with a breathless, coughing, grunt and swings his legs over the edge of the bed, still panting, and realizes it is still dark outside. He moves to look at the clock and finds that that simple motion causes him pain across his shoulders. Breath held, he turns his head gingerly to glance at his shoulder and sees black-edged holes in his white t-shirt. He frowns at these holes in confusion and his breath comes back harder than before. Moving as little as possible, he pulls the shirt up over his head and looks again at his shoulder. There are five black crescent shaped indentions in his skin. A glance at his other shoulder confirms that the same marks are there as well, just as he feared.

 

He pulls himself out of bed, and finds that even this simple motion sends wave of pain rippling through his muscles. He winces and sucks in a breath that does no good to soothe the dryness of his lungs. The walk to his mirror seems to take an age, and when he gets there, he looks at himself in the mirror and is horrified to find that crescents are bleeding, oozing black ink. He rubs at them frantically but nothing happens. It is as though his skin is water, and the crescents five drops of black venom, swirling and twisting through his skin while slowly infecting his entire body.

 

Will is transfixed by their movements and only looks up when he sees a flash of movement from the corner of his eye. _She_ is standing there, looking over his shoulder into the mirror, smiling. Will spins around, back to the wall, prepared to fight her for as long as his dusty lungs will allow, but she rushes forward in a move too fast to be seen and has him pinned to the wall. Her hands grip his wrists and one of her legs slips through the slit in her skirt to come between his legs.

 

Will has lost his strength, he finds, and feels like he has not felt since the fall of his first year at sky high. She pushes her head forward against his neck. “Did you think it was all just a dream, little boy?” she hisses, tongue running over his ear. And then she is gone, and Will realizes that she had been holding him off the floor. He crashes down to the floor and pushes himself as close to the wall as he can, arms wrapped around his bare chest. His breath comes faster and he rubs his skin. He feels like he has been frozen.

 

Then Josie stronghold calls out “will? Are you awake yet? I have breakfast ready for you!” her voice echoes as it comes up the stairs. Will looks around himself, shocked. Bright light streams in through his window and birds sing songs, muffled by the glass. His mother calls to him again and he jerks, pulls himself to his feet and looks around, wide eyed. “Will?” Josie calls out a third time and will finally responds.

 

“Yeah! Yeah, mom, I’m-I’m up! I’ll be down in a minute!” he breaks into a fit of coughs after this announcement, feeling as though his throat has just been rubbed raw by sand. When he can finally take a breath without coughing it back up again, he bends over and picks a shirt up off the floor. He pulls it over his head and winces when it touches his shoulders. He stuffs his feet into his shoes and tumbles out his door, almost falling down the steps.


	3. GodSends

Steve Stronghold is not one of the super-heroes who honestly thinks about the villains that he fights. In his mind, it is simple: they are bad, and he is good. It is a black and white world, through his eyes. Good stays on one side of the barrier, and bad on the other. The two do not mix- there are no hints of gray in his world. Only dark and light.

 

Most superheroes think of the world this way, which is why they tend to leave the teenaged pickpockets to the police. It is because of this way of thought that is so common in superheroes that they dread stumbling upon a kid holding up a grocery store. Because more often than not, when they grab the struggling teen and force them to give it up, they feel the ribs of that child jutting sharply out from their bodies. It is because when the police come to take the thief away, the superheroes cannot help glancing at the shadows and seeing, hidden behind the corner of the building, the dirty child whose eyes show a world of feelings- hunger, fear, anger, sadness, dead parents, and now a brother or a sister in jail, simply for trying to feed their sibling. This is why most superheroes stick to their super-villains- they do not have to worry about shadows of grey.

 

And that is where the GodSends come in. They destroy every hero’s perfect view of the world. They are on no side in particular, only fighting the fights that they are told to. This means that sometimes they are on the side of the heroes, and sometimes on the side of the villains. Sometimes, it’s unclear which side they are on. Most heroes don’t like working with the GodSends, because chances are they’ll be fighting against them within a week. They bend every rule that Steve has every lived his life by- and for this reason, he bends his own rules when he knows that one is around.

 

“Jetstream!” he calls, careful to use his wife’s code name. “Jetstream! You fly on ahead, I’ll, uh, I’ll catch up with you later. There might be some- er. The person who was, uh, controlling this robot may. Still be around. Yes.” He nods importantly to emphasize his point.

 

Josie looks down at her husband oddly. Steve rarely ever considers the fact that there might be someone behind it all, something deeper going on. She rarely considers it either, though more often than him. All the same, she waves to him to show she got the message, and flies off toward home.

 

Satisfied that Josie is out of sight, Steve turns and runs into the nearby alley way, cape billowing behind him. He is just in time to see a bandaged figure turn down another alley- an alley that is illuminated by a suspicious blue light. He speeds up, turns the corner, and barely manages to grab a bandaged wrist just before the body connected to it steps into a portal. Steve jerks the owner of that wrist back and she yelps.

 

She turns to face him, hair hanging in her face, and Steve has no doubt that she is shooting him a death glare underneath the many bandages that cover her eyes.

 

“Judgment.” His voice is calm and even, with a slight undertone of something dangerous- it is a voice that he has been perfecting for years.

 

“Steve.” Her voice is calm and even like his, but she allows some of her annoyance to show through it.

 

“Don’t call me that, judgment, I’m in costume and you know it. Don’t give me that crap about not being able to see through those bandages.” He continues to glare at her for a minute, daring her to respond. She looks bored. He growls. “Damn it! I want a word, Judgment!”

 

Judgment raises an eyebrow. “Just one word, Steve? You know what? I’m feeling generous. I’ll go so far as to give you two. Let. Go.” She pulls the arm that he holds captive back, but both of them know that she can’t really pull her arm free. 

 

Steve growls, and he can feel the beginnings of anger well up within him. “I’m serious, Judgment, so you had better get serious too or I will crush your wrist.” He tightens his grip, just to warn her.

 

Judgment, for her part, is unfazed by his threat. “The Commander, serious? I thought I’d never see it happen.”

 

Steve suddenly drops her wrist, crying out in pain. There is a dagger stuck through his hand, the hilt of it still inside Judgment’s wrist. She daintily removes the hilt from the muscles of her arm, and the skin closes with a sickening quietness that is worse than any noise Steve has ever heard. The next thing he knows, she has pulled the dagger from his hand without pausing at all for him to adjust. The pain brings him to his knees and he screams.

 

Judgment regards him without sympathy and presses the point of the dagger straight into her stomach. She slowly pushes it the rest of the way in, staining the bandages on her midriff with blood, his and hers, mixing together. She glances down at herself. The blood, her blood, has run all the way down her bandaged thighs and has even soaked into her white knee-length loincloth. The hilt of the dagger is still sticking out of her stomach, the rest of it sickeningly deep within her body. Judgment pushes it in the rest of the way with one finger. The skin closes up again, with that same uneasy quiet.

 

Sighing, Judgment drops down, balancing on the balls of her feet. One bloodied finger comes to rest under Steve’s chin and slowly tilts his face up to look at hers. “I had nothing to do with the robot, Steve,” she whispers. “I’m here on another assignment. I suggest that you don’t try to question a member of the GodSends unless you have proof. Okay?” she stands and walks over to the portal, then stops just before stepping through. She turns to face him and grins. A blood covered hand moves to her forehead. “At ease, Commander,” she says, and salutes him.

 

Then she has gone, and the Commander is alone in a dark alley, with no pain in his hand and a voice overhead calling his name.


	4. Silent World

Will registers almost nothing as he collapses in his chair at the table. It is hard enough to breathe as it is without paying attention to the world around him. Each breath he takes seems to be harder than the one before it; the pile of dust in his lungs grows with each inhale, suffocating him slowly, and each exhale, that should provide him with some relief, instead makes the dust climb up his throat, threatening to choke out his next breath completely.

Josie Stronghold sets a plate of pancakes down in front of him, and the silence that replaces what he knows should be a ringing clatter deafens him. He stares at the plate without seeing it.

A hand on his shoulder and his mother’s voice above him, as though it has come out of the huge speaker of Back to the Future fame, shatters everything around him. The world is suddenly in color again, the birds in their yard are singing again. There is pain in his shoulder again, and he jerks away from his mother, a hand protectively covering his injury. He looks at his mother in confusion. Why would she do that to him?

Josie frowns at her son and speaks again. “Will. Aren’t you going to eat your pancakes while they’re still warm?”

This time, Will understands his mother’s words. He nods silently and looks back down at his plate, then picks up his fork. He finds that it is too heavy. He frowns at it slightly and tries a little harder. This time he is able to lift the fork, but it is still too heavy. Holding it over his plate, Will examines the pronged object. It seems to him that it will float, despite its impossible weight. The fork meets the plate with a clatter, too loud, and Will is shocked to find that he had let go of the fork, thinking it would stay there, suspended for all time.

He is vaguely aware, through vibrations from the floor to the chair to his body, that his mother is walking over to him. She speaks, a question that Will does not make out over the buzzing that has filled the room. He does not hear himself answer, does not create an answer in his mind, and yet is aware that he has, in fact, answered, a denial, as his body vibrates.

Josie Stronghold puts a hand on his forehead, burning him, and looks into his eyes. He sees her mouth move, feels her vibrations, feels his in response, feels her straighten and vibrate, worry, at her husband, his father. He sees his father look to his mother, vibrations through the table into him as he sets his mug down. He feels his father reply, nonchalant, no worry, his mother begins to vibrate back at him, when another vibration enters. The small red phone, through the table, cries out, ‘come, come! there is trouble! big trouble! downtown!’

Will does not hear his parents say good bye, but he feels them get up from the table. He feels Josie through the floor as she pauses, then turns back to him, kisses him on the cheek, burn, and says something to him. Then her voice breaks through his world of vibrations and she tells him, “Take the bus to school today, okay? I don’t want you falling out of the sky.” Then the vibrations close in again, and Steve Stronghold is vibrating at his wife, hurry, from the secret sanctum.

Then he is alone, headed out the door, then there is Layla. Her vibrations are green, growth, good, and he wants to fall, fall into that green and be healed, no more dust, no more pain in his shoulders, but knows, inside, instinctual, impulse, that that can’t happen just yet. He hears himself say that they should take the bus this time, feels her vibrate back, green, confused but agreeable.

The walk to the bus stop is a blur to him in his world of vibrations, where anything that moves registers, even the great grinding of the earth as it turns, slowly, in a mass of black velvet, black like her hair and soft like the dusty red velvet that she laid back on, flaunting her bloodless, breathless body. He coughs, feels the dust in his lungs stir up, settle down, and feels the ink run from the ten crescent moons that cover his shoulders.

Will Stronghold is not sure why, but the feeling in the back of his mind assures him that he does, has no time left for beating hearts.


	5. Visit from a Friend

Josie Stronghold is surprised, to say the least, at how listless her son is. Usually, even when he is sick- as he is now, she is sure he is sick, it is a mother’s intuition, never mind his monotonous reply of, I’m fine, she knows he is sick- he has some energy, some emotion. Josie is worried about her son, more worried than she has ever been before.

But before Josie can further her knowledge of her son’s current state, the Stronghold cell rings and she and her husband are off to the secret sanctum, off to downtown, and off to defeat the latest giant robot threatening their city. And they do, in fact, defeat it.

Then the day takes its second odd turn. Steve calls out to her, tells her to fly on ahead while he scouts out the area for whoever is responsible. Steve does not usually think about whoever is responsible, if anyone thinks about whoever is responsible, it is Josie, and she usually doesn’t think about whoever may be responsible because it has happened so many times that it seems that these robots come out of a factory at the bottom of the ocean that makes giant robots programmed to attack large cities simply to keep superheroes busy.

Although Josie must admit, it has been sometime since she and Steve have fought a giant robot, because since Ron Wilson fell into a vat of toxic waste, he’s been taking care of such things. But he’s on vacation today, and Josie almost finds the familiarity of destroying the robot comforting.

But Josie supposes that there is a first time for everything and flies on, back home, where she changes into her civilian clothes and puts the glasses that separate Jetstream from Josie back on. When she finishes fixing her hair so that it doesn’t look like she’s been riding on the wing of an airplane, she gets in the car and drives to that old house out there in the middle of nowhere and manages to sell it, like she always does, to the current young couple.

After that, it is on to the grocery store and other small errands that her mind is not truly focused on. It wanders through the green pastures of the farm of her childhood, marvels at the fact that the young man behind the counter of the deli doesn’t recognize, or refuses to recognize her as Jetstream simply because she wears glasses and Jetstream does not. Then her mind begins to toss around the idea of wearing goggles when she flies, just as she did when she first discovered her ability to soar through the air so fast that a gust of wind came hurtling after her, and then she pushes the thought aside. It’s too hard to change her costume now, with the world so used to what it is. The world was upset when she changed her color-scheme to match Steve’s, and they only calmed down when she explained that she had married the Commander. How was she supposed to explain the goggles? ‘I’m getting old, give me a break’?

She finishes her errands, goes out to the car, ready to be at home, where she can talk about the day with her husband and worry about her son’s health. She is just about to start the car when the day takes its third turn towards the strange.

“Hello, Josie.”

Josie is so startled by the floaty greeting next to her that she jerks her head upwards and hits it on the roof of the car. She winces and rubs at her head for a moment, then turns warily to see who greeted her and what they are doing in her car. She is shocked by who she finds in the front passenger seat.

A gasp escapes her throat as she whispers the name that fits the person next to her. “Jenna…”

Jenna Valette is the last person she expected to see here, of all places. Jenna, who she had known all her life, Jenna, Jenna, Jenna, Josie and she, Josie and Jenna, best friends forever, guaranteed, they used to swing, so high, singing at the top of their lungs ‘til they were oxygen-deprived, then fly and float, so high, higher than any bird could fly, learning the secrets of the sky when their abilities were still magic and not powers limited to saving the world.

Jenna cocks her head and rainbow strands of silver fall into her eyes, milk white and deeper than the ocean. She stares at Josie for seconds that pass by like hours, and though she is looking at Josie, Josie can tell that those eyes do not truly see her.

“Illusion has come to see Josie because Illusion wonders if Josie knows where her husband is.” Jenna’s voice is light like a little girl’s and breathy, still holding the sky-secrets that Josie has almost forgotten.

“Steve is at work.” Josie’s reply is slow, and she is not as confident as she wishes she was.

Jenna, Illusion now, Josie realizes with a jolt, traces a pattern invisible to all but her fingers on the front windshield, eyes lowered. “Illusion doubts that. Does Josie know for sure that her husband is at work? Illusion knows that he isn’t.”

“Where is he? If he’s not at work, where is he?” she tries to hide the fear, but the urgency in her voice makes it clear.

Illusion raises her eyes, and for a moment they have pupils again, and she is Jenna once more. The moment passes as a raindrop hits the roof of her car, deafening like thunder. “Where was Josie this morning?”

Then it hits Josie like a train- Steve, the robot- and she wants to scream. What if he did find the person responsible? What if- she won’t think it, she can’t, she turns the key and backs out of the parking space, barely misses a passing car, and then she barely hears Illusion’s voice before she fades away, “Illusion wonders one other thing- Does Josie know what is underneath her son’s shirt?”

Then she is gone and Josie almost doesn’t realize that she has parked the car, changed into costume and taken to the air, almost screaming Steve’s name and barely managing to call him the Commander. When she finds him, dazed in an alley way, on his knees, she nearly faints.


	6. Art Teacher

Will is jolted out of his vibrating world the exact second his foot comes down on the pavement. Already he had become used to the vibrations, and suddenly, without them, he stumbles as sounds come rushing back to him as a tidal wave of voices. Layla catches him and he hears her again.

“Will? You know, maybe you shouldn’t have come to school. You really don’t look… right.”

Will looks at her and coughs. The dust ignores him and drifts throughout his body, no longer interested in drowning him in age. His eyes seem to be adjusting to the sudden lack of visible vibrations. Layla is not surrounded by soft greens and golds any longer. People have hard outlines once more without their various vibrations, Will finds as he glances around. 

“Will? Did you even hear me?” Layla looks at him suspiciously and Will is reminded of his mother.

“Yeah, sorry, I’m just tired. I didn’t sleep well last night.”

“Are you sure?”

Will looks at Layla again and wonders if he is sure- Did he sleep last night? Then he realizes that this is not what she means, she is asking him if he is sure that he is alright.

Will does not answer her question, and instead tells her a lie so that he can avoid the possibilities of ‘Are you sure?’ because Will no longer knows what is he sure about, about life, love, sleep and endless dreams. “I have to go meet Warren in the library. I’ll see you at lunch.”

And then he is gone, and Layla is staring after him with a puzzled expression on her face.  

Will heads to his locker and finds himself instead at the door of the art room. He stands there, numb, when suddenly a hand comes down on his shoulder.

“Are you gonna stand there like a statue all day long, or go in the classroom? If you’re going to be a statue today, I’d like to move you to the center of the room so the students can draw you.”

Miss Jo sweeps past him, the skirt of her black dress brushing against his legs as she passes. Will stares after her and she pulls her self up onto a desk and sits. She swings her legs back and forth, on the edge of the desk and regards him with her tongue sticking out from between her lips. “What’s bothering you?”

“Don’t you already know that?”

Miss Jo raises an eyebrow. “Clearly, someone was not listening when I explained my ability. I’m not psychic; I can’t read your thoughts.”

“But you said-”

“I can understand, yes. But understanding is a rather complex thing for anyone who has not truly experienced it to understand. Do you understand?” She grins at him and Will feels a smile breaking out on his face.

“You said you would give any student who answered that question with a ‘yes’ fifty demerits.”

“Oh, look at that! One of my students was actually listening! Thank the lord.” She slides off the desk and walks over to Will, slings an arm around his neck, and Will doesn’t feel any pain in his shoulders. He wonders if the strange marks have disappeared, just as they came, but his hopes are dashed as Miss Jo regards him and slowly says, “The marks are still there.”

“How did you-?”

She cuts him off with a sigh and a shake of her head that sends strands of brown hair into her face. “Part of understanding. I can tell what physical shape you’re in- that’s the reason that Principal Powers keeps telling me that I should take over Nurse Specs’ job when she retires, which will only happen when the world ends- I can tell you’ve lost your powers, too.”

Will stares at her sad expression and horror covers his face. “I’ve- I’ve… lost my powers?” he can’t take this again, can’t handle the thought of never flying again, of going back to a level of strength that he once considered normal and now thinks of as weak, can’t stand the thought of that look in his parents eyes, the one that was there whenever they looked at him after they found out that he had no powers. Numb, he walks away from Miss Jo and collapses in a nearby chair, head in his hands.

Miss Jo regards him sadly, her arm falling to her side as Will walks away. “Well,” she pauses, crosses her arms and walks over to him, “as far as I can tell, they’re not inactive. Just… hibernating.” Will looks up at her, and she understands the question he is going to ask. “I can’t tell you when they’ll be back. I’m no psychic, remember?”

He looks back down at the floor. Again, Miss Jo understands what he is saying, though he has not spoken a word. “You don’t have to tell anyone, unless you want to. I would suggest you tell your girlfriend and your best friend, but you don’t have to. I can get you out of PE, and you would probably be better off not telling your parents. They’ll only worry, and your powers should be back soon enough.” Will nods, silent.   

He looks up at her after a moment, pauses, then opens his mouth to tell her… something, anything, just… to tell her, but he is cut off by Miss Jo. “You should probably go to class. The bell will ring soon.” The look she is giving him, far off and cold, tells him that she knows what he was about to tell her, though he is not sure himself what he would have said. His mouth goes dry and he feels the dust stir up in his body again as he leaves. As he is walking out the door, he hears her whisper, “Goodbye, Will.” He can’t help but feel that it is final, the end.

As soon as Will is gone, Jorie sighs, rubs the back of her neck and looks with closed eyes to the ceiling. She opens them and groans. “I hate it when you guys mess with the students. Sometimes, I think you do that just to spite me,” she whispers. Jorie’s eyes close again, and she wishes things were different. 


End file.
